Saitama police looking for bag snatcher who preys on elderly people

Police in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, are looking for a man who snatched a bag from an 80-year-old woman, causing her to fall down and injure herself.

The incident, which occurred on Friday, is the 20th reported case of bag-snatching targeting elderly people in Saitama Prefecture in the past four weeks, Sankei Shimbun reported. Police believe they may all be the work of the same man who uses a bicycle to ride up behind his victims.

Of the 20 incidents, 15 occurred in Kawaguchi and five in two neighboring cities -- Toda and Warabi.

In the latest incident, the man rode up behind the woman who was walking home just before 9 p.m. Friday. He yanked the bag, which contained 50,000 yen, from her hands and rode away. The woman fell down and injured her knee.

Police said they are analyzing street surveillance camera footage to try and identify the suspect.

Oct. 16, 2017
11:15 am JST

Oct. 16, 2017
11:34 am JST

The police need a search warrant to review any nearby CCTV recordings and getting them takes time unfortunately. In a case where my wife's wallet was stolen, it took the cops 3 weeks to receive and execute their search warrant so 4 weeks is completely reasonable. I'm sure they also now have sting operations in place as in common with bag snatching cases but they won't tell the media this.

Oct. 16, 2017
12:45 pm JST

Mike Wyckoff - The police need a search warrant to review any nearby CCTV recordings and getting them takes time unfortunately. In a case where my wife's wallet was stolen, it took the cops 3 weeks to receive and execute their search warrant so 4 weeks is completely reasonable.

Don't generalise unless you know what you are talking about. My step-daughter's bag was stolen from her bicycle basket. The cops nabbed him within three days and charged him with 20 other similar offences through CCTV footage.